Improved floor-covering



UNITED STATES PATENT OFIGE.

ANSON H. PLATI, OF ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.

IMPROVED FLOOR-COVERING.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 57,763, dated September 4, 1866.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Anson H. PLA'IT, of the city of Ann Arbor, State of Michigan, have invented a new and Improved Floor-Covering as a Substitute for Oil-Cloths and Carpets and I hereby declare the following to be a full and exact description of the process of making the same.

My invention includes two different sorts of floor'covering, which I distinguish respectively by the names of the hand-made and ffactory-made varieties of paper floor-coverlng.

In the production of the first or hand-made variety I proceed as follows: I take heavy brown paper in the piece or roll, generally such as is used in making patent roofs, and cover a floor with it, lapping the edges about three-fourths of an inch and pasting them firmly together, making the whole covering in one piece, and tacking the outer edges next the base-board to the floor, so as to hold the whole firmly in its place, and leaving all but the edges loose or free from the floor, and this I call the base-paper. I then dissolve by a slow heat two pounds of resin in one gallon of carbon oil, either benzine, kerosene, or the heavier lubricating-oil, and add to this onehalf gallon of boiled linseed-oil, one gill of J apan or drying oil, and four ounces of yellow litharge, and this I call my water-proof compound. I now give the base-paper already described a very free coat of the water-proof compound, which dries readily, hardens, and toughens the paper and renders it completely water-proof. I next cover this brown paper thus prepared with another paper, usually commpn wall-paper, printed in water-colors, pasting the latter down firmly to the former with a paste made of flour and a solution of common glue.

When the two papers are well dried I apply to the figured surface two coats of a solution of white glue, using half a pound of glue to a gallon of water, which has the effect to protect the colors from the action of the subsequent coats next to be described.

In the next place, I make a compound of three fourths copal-varnish, three sixteenths boiled linseed-oil, and one-sixteenth Japan or drying varnish, which I call my enamel coating, and I apply to the figured surface of the floor-covering, already described, from two to four coats of it, as rapidly as they will dry, which completes a sample of the hand-made variety of paper fioor-coverin g.

In the production of the factory-made variety I proceed as follows: I take heavy strong paper, of any desired width or thickness, Manila paper being best, and, using my waten proofcompound as a substitute for linseed-oil, I make with it from ordinary solid paint materials in common use a paint of two different colorsone intended to be applied to the back or floor side of the paper, and the other to the top or upper surface, as a groundwork upon which the figures are to be printed-and these two coats dry readily and render the paper hard, tough, and completely water-proof. I next print upon the surface intended for that purpose, in water-colors, ornamental figures, designed to fancy, and when the colors are well driedI apply to the figured surface from two to four coats of the enamel coating already described, which completes a sample of the factory-made variety of paper floor-covermg.

0n the 17th day of January, A. D. 1865, the United States Patent Office granted me a pat cut for a paper floor-covering; but in that patent no mention was made of rendering the base-paper water-proof before the other paper was applied to it in the hand-made variety, nor of rendering the paper waterproof in the factory-made variety before the ornamental figures were printed upon it, and experience has since proved that in both varieties, when water is applied to the surface to cleanse it, the moisture penetrates the paper sufficiently to swell it and throw it up in ridges, which remain a long time before the paper again resumes its usual position; and this defect has proved a very serious obstacle to my former invention, and rendered it nearly worthless, but is now wholly obviated by my present invention, which, in both sorts, renders the body of the paper completely water-proof before the colors are applied.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

l. The application of paper printed in Watercolors to heavy base-paper, previously made water-proof by the use of my water-proof compound, as a substitute for oil-cloths and earpets, as herein described under the head of hand-made variety of paper floor-covering.

2. The application of ornamental figures, printed in Water-colors directly upon heavy strong paper, previously made water-proof by the use of my water-proof compound, or by any other similar compound, combined with other articles to form a paint,'as herein described, under the head of factory -madc variety of paper floor-covering.

3. The water-proof compound and enamel coating, as herein described, for the usesand purposes herein specified.

ANSON H. PLATT.

Witnesses OASsIUs L. PLATT, Amen A. GARY 

